Order of Authors in A List
Rules for the order of multiple authors in a list vary significantly between fields of research, but are generally consistent within a particular field. Some fields list authors in order of their degree of involvement in the work, with the most active contributors listed first; other fields, such as Mathematics or Engineering (e.g. Control theory), sometimes list them alphabetically. Biologists tend to place a principal investigator (supervisor or lab head) last in an author list; organic chemists might put him or her first.
Although listing authors in order of the involvement in the project seems straightforward, it often leads to conflict. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that more than two-thirds of 919 corresponding authors disagreed with their coauthors regarding contributions of each author.
Read more about this topic: Academic Authorship
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